Murder defendant's longtime friend testifies

A man who said he has been friends with murder defendant Mario Casciaro since the eighth grade testified Friday in McHenry County Circuit Court that his longtime pal knew what happened to the body of a teen who disappeared nine years ago.

Alan Lippert, 28, related conversations with Casciaro that took place in 2006, long after the Dec. 20, 2002, disappearance of Brian Carrick, 17, of Johnsburg. Carrick's body has never been found.

Casciaro said "he had Shane Lamb scare him. … Things got out of hand," Lippert testified. "Mario (Casciaro) said it was an accident."

Prosecutors allege that Carrick was killed after Casciaro directed Lamb to scare the teen and get money owed for drugs. Lamb, who testified Thursday in exchange for immunity from being charged in the death, acknowledged that he got upset with Carrick and beat him in the produce cooler of Val's grocery store in Johnsburg. But then Casciaro told Lamb to leave, according to Lamb.

"Shane hit him, or something," Lippert said Casciaro told him. "But it was an accident and (Casciaro) had relatives come in to help remove or dispose of the body and Shane took it to a river in Iowa."

Lippert testified that after a night of drinking several beers and doing shots at a Fox Lake bar in 2006, he asked Casciaro what happened to Carrick's body.

Months later, Lippert was arrested on unrelated charges and Johnsburg police asked him about the Carrick case. He said he told them the story he testified to on Friday. He said that in 2008 he repeated the story to FBI investigators.